Rey Skywalker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thatwaslucky) wrote2019-12-11 12:49 pm
thatwaslucky) wrote2019-12-11 12:49 pm
Ryloth- Wednesday evening
The bad feeling hadn't gone away, and it was driving Rey crazy.
Everyone was on their missions. It was quiet on Ryloth. There didn't seem to be anything to worry about, and the bad feeling had actually faded to something manageable before becoming all she could think about within the last half hour or so. Finn was off on Corellia with Poe, so she couldn't even talk to him about it. Therefore she'd spent the whole day trying to keep herself busy until the moment she couldn't take it anymore, at which point she made her way back to Yendor's library, where he had her wait a moment at the far end of the room.
He spoke with Leia for a moment to tell her that she had a visitor, and when Rey heard her name, she waved a little. Leia met her halfway, and they stopped in front of the holo display that was now used too much to be removed. "General Organa."
It looked like Leia might correct her on the name again, but stopped short. Rey couldn't help it. She could refer to her by name to other people, but she couldn't make herself use it to her face yet. Leia was still too big a figure to her. Instead, she asked, "Is something wrong, Rey?"
Rey paused.
"Spit it out," Leia told her.
"How are the missions going?" Rey asked in a rush. "Finn and Poe, the Bracca retrieval, the prisoner rescue? Everything all right?"
"As far as I know. Why do you ask? Are you…"
Rey nodded. She'd told Leia she wanted to stay because she had a feeling she should, and Leia had just accepted it. She knew. She must have had them herself. "I have that feeling again," Rey explained. "I thought it would go away, but it hasn't, and…"
Leia placed her hands on Rey's shoulders, as if steadying her. "Rey," she said gently. "You and I, we have something special. Something that means feelings aren't just feelings. Do you understand?"
"The Force," Rey murmured, nodding. The Force, which apparently gave her low level migraines of this.
"So you better tell me."
"That's just it," Rey sighed. "I can't! Because I'm not sure what it means. It's just… a feeling."
Leia studied her, but Rey really couldn't find the words for this. She didn't know how to sort this out, and there were too many things in motion right now to even narrow it down.
"Let's check in on the missions, then, shall we?" Leia said. "See if there's any news."
Rose and Connix were at the communications console, R2-D2 settled into a spot nearby, beeping a greeting at Leia. "Any news?" she asked, leaning over Rose's shoulder to see the displays.
Rose startled. "General Organa! I didn't see you," She sat up straighter, pulling off her headphones and setting them on the console, and smiled at Rey. "Hi!"
"Hi," Rey returned, and felt bad that she wasn't friendlier right now. She actually really liked Rose. They didn't have much one on one time, but Rose was probably the nicest person Rey had ever met, and tended to do things like offer her own rations, like she was worried Rey wasn't getting enough. She was just a good person.
"Any word from Bracca or Corellia?" Leia asked.
"Zay checked in at oh nine hundred hours," Rose reported. "She said that they had made planetfall, and Dross Squadron was headed to their rendezvous point with their contact from the guild."
"Did she report any problems?"
"No. I mean, negative. All seemed to be going smoothly. But she said their away team would be out of comlink contact for a while. Something about interference on the planet's surface."
"Good." Leia turned to Connix. "What about the Corellian teams?"
"Team One has landed and is at the auction," Connix answered. "They're out of comlink contact, but for safety reasons. Seems there's a substantial First Order presence where they are. But I'm monitoring that here." She pointed to four small blinking lights on the screen.
"Do we know if the auction's started?"
"We do," Rose said. "We had a communication from Maz Kanata."
"Did she report any problems?"
"None so far."
"And the other Corellian team?"
"No word from them," Connix replied. "But the minute I hear something, I'll let you know."
"Thank you." Leia turned to Rey. "Does that help?"
"Yes," Rey said, frowning. "But I still feel something. I can't explain it."
She tried. It was like this buzzing in the back of her brain that didn't go away, and just kept getting stronger. Usually, if she could figure out the mechanics behind something Force-related, at least in a way that worked for her, it became easy to do. She'd felt it before, at Halloween when the clowns attacked, but that had been a clear, constant threat. This wasn't clear at all.
"I can't explain it," she repeated, shaking her head in frustration.
"That's okay," Leia said gently. "When you do know, come find me and we'll-"
Rey honestly didn't know if she'd accidentally tapped into something, or if the threat did make itself clear in that moment, but all of a sudden she knew what it was, and her head jerked up in alarm. "They're here."
A proximity alarm blared through the room, and massive metal doors closed over the glass windows of the room.
"All hands!" Yendor shouted from across the room. "Sound the alarm. The First Order is here. We're under attack!"
It wasn't Kylo Ren, Rey knew that for sure. That didn't make this any better.
And later, she'd have to figure out how she did feel about all of that.
Hahnee came running in a few moments later, yelling about a betrayal in the capital city, and then it was a frantic rush to get out through the same halls they'd felt safe in for days. They made it all the way to the hangar, collecting Yendor's family and anyone else that they could before they encountered anyone. A second before any shots rang out, Rey had pulled her blaster free and was firing on a trooper.
Yendor and the RDA members were at the south end of the hangar, keeping First Order troops at bay, so he didn't see when Hahnee took the blaster bolt to the chest and fell. Rey did, just out of the corner of her eye, too busy shooting to stop and check on her, but she also saw Leia swoop in to pick up the fallen woman's weapon and take up the fight.
They hadn't sent enough troopers, probably, and after too long, Rey saw the assault start to diminish. "They're retreating!" she realized.
"Probably to find a better place to attack," Leia agreed.
Chewbacca yelled an all clear, and Rey made sure to cover Leia as they got everyone aboard the Falcon, which felt uncomfortably familiar after Crait.
Rose was waiting for them when they got up the landing ramp. "All personnel accounted for and on board their respective vessels," she reported. "We're ready to get the heck out of here, as soon as we get word that it's clear out there."
"Clear out there," Leia repeated. "What does that mean?"
"That they're not waiting to pick us off as soon as we leave the cave."
Rey was heading for the cockpit before Rose had finished her sentence. Chewie was already readying the ship for flight, and she slid into the pilot's seat next to him. Threepio was in a seat behind them, wisely silent, letting them work the prechecks like they'd done this a hundred times together before, monitoring comm chatter to figure out a plan with the other ships.
Leia wasn't far from the cockpit when her comm went off, so when she answered it, Rey could hear everything. "Leia!" came Yendor's voice, surrounded by sounds of a firefight in the background. "What's your position?"
"We're all in place and accounted for. Except…" Leia fell silent, probably trying to find the right words.
"...take two men and head for the cannon," Yendor was saying.
"Cannon?"
"Surface-to-air cover," he said, sounding a little excited by getting to do some real fighting again. "A little surprise from the RDA that the dirtbags back in Lessu don't know about, and the First Order won't see coming. It's not much but it should give you some cover."
"You are full of surprises," Leia said, and paused again. "Hahnee… She didn't make it, Yendor."
The other end went silent, and Rey and Chewie glanced at each other like they were both bracing themselves for the reaction.
"I'm sorry," Leia said when Yendor didn't respond. "She died defending us. It was a good death."
"There are no good deaths, my friend," Yendor said somberly. "Just deaths. The children? Charth's children?"
"The children are safe and accounted for."
"Okay, then. Get them to their father."
"And what about their grandfather?"
"Tell them he died directing the cannon. Tell them he died defending a free Ryloth, same as their aunt."
Chewbacca growled, and when Leia didn't seem to hear him, he repeated the statement for Threepio.
"Excuse me, General Organa," Threepio said dutifully. "Chewbacca asked me to tell you that they are short an X-wing pilot. It seems that one of the Phantom Squadron pilots did not survive the initial First Order attack."
Leia paused again, and said, "Yendor… How do you feel about flying again?"
Yendor considered it for an agonizing minute. "I'm on my way."
With the call ended, Leia began giving orders to Rose on what to do and who to tell to go where, and then she made her way the rest of the way to the cockpit, where she sunk into her usual seat. Rey expected her to start issuing orders here, and… she didn't.
"We make a run for it, like Yendor said," Rey said over her shoulder as they engaged the thrusters. "The X-wings will lead, and the others will follow."
Leia just said, "Okay."
Rey looked back at her, and realized she was witnessing one of those little moments Leia tried to hide when someone might be looking, those moments where everything felt like too much. Rey was no stranger to that feeling herself. She'd been feeling it the moment she met Leia for the first time, brand new on D'qar after the worst day of her life. Or the hour or so before she'd left for Ahch-To, terrified and hopeful at the same time. Or after Crait, when she'd just felt lost.
So she did what Leia always did for her.
"Leia."
Leia looked up at her, maybe more startled that Rey had called her by name than anything else.
"We have to fight," Rey told her. "I know it's hard, but what's the alternative? Let the First Order win? They wouldn't spare our friends and family. At least we fight for what we love this way. As long as we fight, there's hope."
Leia studied her, and said, "There's always hope. Drops of water, right?"
It was a reference to a late night conversation they'd had… well, days ago for Leia. It'd been weeks for Rey, but she remembered it. "Which we'll build into an ocean," she agreed.
She turned back to the viewport, and Chewie growled a question at her. She nodded, and they were airborne, shields engaged and dodging cannon fire, leaving Ryloth behind.
[Taken from Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse. New book and all, yadda yadda, NFB, NFI, Rey and Leia are my favorites.]
Everyone was on their missions. It was quiet on Ryloth. There didn't seem to be anything to worry about, and the bad feeling had actually faded to something manageable before becoming all she could think about within the last half hour or so. Finn was off on Corellia with Poe, so she couldn't even talk to him about it. Therefore she'd spent the whole day trying to keep herself busy until the moment she couldn't take it anymore, at which point she made her way back to Yendor's library, where he had her wait a moment at the far end of the room.
He spoke with Leia for a moment to tell her that she had a visitor, and when Rey heard her name, she waved a little. Leia met her halfway, and they stopped in front of the holo display that was now used too much to be removed. "General Organa."
It looked like Leia might correct her on the name again, but stopped short. Rey couldn't help it. She could refer to her by name to other people, but she couldn't make herself use it to her face yet. Leia was still too big a figure to her. Instead, she asked, "Is something wrong, Rey?"
Rey paused.
"Spit it out," Leia told her.
"How are the missions going?" Rey asked in a rush. "Finn and Poe, the Bracca retrieval, the prisoner rescue? Everything all right?"
"As far as I know. Why do you ask? Are you…"
Rey nodded. She'd told Leia she wanted to stay because she had a feeling she should, and Leia had just accepted it. She knew. She must have had them herself. "I have that feeling again," Rey explained. "I thought it would go away, but it hasn't, and…"
Leia placed her hands on Rey's shoulders, as if steadying her. "Rey," she said gently. "You and I, we have something special. Something that means feelings aren't just feelings. Do you understand?"
"The Force," Rey murmured, nodding. The Force, which apparently gave her low level migraines of this.
"So you better tell me."
"That's just it," Rey sighed. "I can't! Because I'm not sure what it means. It's just… a feeling."
Leia studied her, but Rey really couldn't find the words for this. She didn't know how to sort this out, and there were too many things in motion right now to even narrow it down.
"Let's check in on the missions, then, shall we?" Leia said. "See if there's any news."
Rose and Connix were at the communications console, R2-D2 settled into a spot nearby, beeping a greeting at Leia. "Any news?" she asked, leaning over Rose's shoulder to see the displays.
Rose startled. "General Organa! I didn't see you," She sat up straighter, pulling off her headphones and setting them on the console, and smiled at Rey. "Hi!"
"Hi," Rey returned, and felt bad that she wasn't friendlier right now. She actually really liked Rose. They didn't have much one on one time, but Rose was probably the nicest person Rey had ever met, and tended to do things like offer her own rations, like she was worried Rey wasn't getting enough. She was just a good person.
"Any word from Bracca or Corellia?" Leia asked.
"Zay checked in at oh nine hundred hours," Rose reported. "She said that they had made planetfall, and Dross Squadron was headed to their rendezvous point with their contact from the guild."
"Did she report any problems?"
"No. I mean, negative. All seemed to be going smoothly. But she said their away team would be out of comlink contact for a while. Something about interference on the planet's surface."
"Good." Leia turned to Connix. "What about the Corellian teams?"
"Team One has landed and is at the auction," Connix answered. "They're out of comlink contact, but for safety reasons. Seems there's a substantial First Order presence where they are. But I'm monitoring that here." She pointed to four small blinking lights on the screen.
"Do we know if the auction's started?"
"We do," Rose said. "We had a communication from Maz Kanata."
"Did she report any problems?"
"None so far."
"And the other Corellian team?"
"No word from them," Connix replied. "But the minute I hear something, I'll let you know."
"Thank you." Leia turned to Rey. "Does that help?"
"Yes," Rey said, frowning. "But I still feel something. I can't explain it."
She tried. It was like this buzzing in the back of her brain that didn't go away, and just kept getting stronger. Usually, if she could figure out the mechanics behind something Force-related, at least in a way that worked for her, it became easy to do. She'd felt it before, at Halloween when the clowns attacked, but that had been a clear, constant threat. This wasn't clear at all.
"I can't explain it," she repeated, shaking her head in frustration.
"That's okay," Leia said gently. "When you do know, come find me and we'll-"
Rey honestly didn't know if she'd accidentally tapped into something, or if the threat did make itself clear in that moment, but all of a sudden she knew what it was, and her head jerked up in alarm. "They're here."
A proximity alarm blared through the room, and massive metal doors closed over the glass windows of the room.
"All hands!" Yendor shouted from across the room. "Sound the alarm. The First Order is here. We're under attack!"
It wasn't Kylo Ren, Rey knew that for sure. That didn't make this any better.
And later, she'd have to figure out how she did feel about all of that.
Hahnee came running in a few moments later, yelling about a betrayal in the capital city, and then it was a frantic rush to get out through the same halls they'd felt safe in for days. They made it all the way to the hangar, collecting Yendor's family and anyone else that they could before they encountered anyone. A second before any shots rang out, Rey had pulled her blaster free and was firing on a trooper.
Yendor and the RDA members were at the south end of the hangar, keeping First Order troops at bay, so he didn't see when Hahnee took the blaster bolt to the chest and fell. Rey did, just out of the corner of her eye, too busy shooting to stop and check on her, but she also saw Leia swoop in to pick up the fallen woman's weapon and take up the fight.
They hadn't sent enough troopers, probably, and after too long, Rey saw the assault start to diminish. "They're retreating!" she realized.
"Probably to find a better place to attack," Leia agreed.
Chewbacca yelled an all clear, and Rey made sure to cover Leia as they got everyone aboard the Falcon, which felt uncomfortably familiar after Crait.
Rose was waiting for them when they got up the landing ramp. "All personnel accounted for and on board their respective vessels," she reported. "We're ready to get the heck out of here, as soon as we get word that it's clear out there."
"Clear out there," Leia repeated. "What does that mean?"
"That they're not waiting to pick us off as soon as we leave the cave."
Rey was heading for the cockpit before Rose had finished her sentence. Chewie was already readying the ship for flight, and she slid into the pilot's seat next to him. Threepio was in a seat behind them, wisely silent, letting them work the prechecks like they'd done this a hundred times together before, monitoring comm chatter to figure out a plan with the other ships.
Leia wasn't far from the cockpit when her comm went off, so when she answered it, Rey could hear everything. "Leia!" came Yendor's voice, surrounded by sounds of a firefight in the background. "What's your position?"
"We're all in place and accounted for. Except…" Leia fell silent, probably trying to find the right words.
"...take two men and head for the cannon," Yendor was saying.
"Cannon?"
"Surface-to-air cover," he said, sounding a little excited by getting to do some real fighting again. "A little surprise from the RDA that the dirtbags back in Lessu don't know about, and the First Order won't see coming. It's not much but it should give you some cover."
"You are full of surprises," Leia said, and paused again. "Hahnee… She didn't make it, Yendor."
The other end went silent, and Rey and Chewie glanced at each other like they were both bracing themselves for the reaction.
"I'm sorry," Leia said when Yendor didn't respond. "She died defending us. It was a good death."
"There are no good deaths, my friend," Yendor said somberly. "Just deaths. The children? Charth's children?"
"The children are safe and accounted for."
"Okay, then. Get them to their father."
"And what about their grandfather?"
"Tell them he died directing the cannon. Tell them he died defending a free Ryloth, same as their aunt."
Chewbacca growled, and when Leia didn't seem to hear him, he repeated the statement for Threepio.
"Excuse me, General Organa," Threepio said dutifully. "Chewbacca asked me to tell you that they are short an X-wing pilot. It seems that one of the Phantom Squadron pilots did not survive the initial First Order attack."
Leia paused again, and said, "Yendor… How do you feel about flying again?"
Yendor considered it for an agonizing minute. "I'm on my way."
With the call ended, Leia began giving orders to Rose on what to do and who to tell to go where, and then she made her way the rest of the way to the cockpit, where she sunk into her usual seat. Rey expected her to start issuing orders here, and… she didn't.
"We make a run for it, like Yendor said," Rey said over her shoulder as they engaged the thrusters. "The X-wings will lead, and the others will follow."
Leia just said, "Okay."
Rey looked back at her, and realized she was witnessing one of those little moments Leia tried to hide when someone might be looking, those moments where everything felt like too much. Rey was no stranger to that feeling herself. She'd been feeling it the moment she met Leia for the first time, brand new on D'qar after the worst day of her life. Or the hour or so before she'd left for Ahch-To, terrified and hopeful at the same time. Or after Crait, when she'd just felt lost.
So she did what Leia always did for her.
"Leia."
Leia looked up at her, maybe more startled that Rey had called her by name than anything else.
"We have to fight," Rey told her. "I know it's hard, but what's the alternative? Let the First Order win? They wouldn't spare our friends and family. At least we fight for what we love this way. As long as we fight, there's hope."
Leia studied her, and said, "There's always hope. Drops of water, right?"
It was a reference to a late night conversation they'd had… well, days ago for Leia. It'd been weeks for Rey, but she remembered it. "Which we'll build into an ocean," she agreed.
She turned back to the viewport, and Chewie growled a question at her. She nodded, and they were airborne, shields engaged and dodging cannon fire, leaving Ryloth behind.
[Taken from Resistance Reborn by Rebecca Roanhorse. New book and all, yadda yadda, NFB, NFI, Rey and Leia are my favorites.]